Tarantino's idea of A Southern may be the best thing I've heard him say.

Indeed.

Quentin Tarantino Keen On Slavery

By Garth Franklin Source: Dark HorizonsTuesday February 16th 2010

Quentin Tarantino tells The NY Daily News that he's interested in doing a Western, albeit set in a different time and place than we are used to seeing on-screen.

Tarantino says "rather than set it in Texas, have it in slavery times. With that subject that everybody is afraid to deal with. Let's shine that light on ourselves. You could do a ponderous history lesson of slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad. Or, you could make a movie that would be exciting. Do it as an adventure. A spaghetti Western that takes place during that time. And I would call it 'A Southern.'"

Well here's something unexpected. Michael Madsen was recently on the WAAF Boston Hill-Man Morning Show when a caller asked him whether or not Quentin Tarantino's once talked about Reservoir Dogs / Pulp Fiction spin-off film, The Vega Brothers, would ever be happening. Madsen starts by confirming what everyone has assumed for years; both he, who played Vic Vega in Reservoir Dogs, and John Travolta, who played Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction, had gotten a little too old to do a prequel film. But, and here's the unexpected part, that's no barrier for Tarantino.

According to Madsen, the eclectic director recently took a trip to Tijuana and at some point he came up with a new idea for The Vega Brothers. I think it's best heard in the words of Madsen, so hop below to watch footage of him spilling the beans, but in short the concept is this: the Vega brothers were actually two sets of identical twins who had no idea the other set existed. However, their paths of revenge for their respective brothers deaths cross and the two will then team up.

"I'd be Vic Vega's twin brother, he'd be Vincent's twin brother and we're both on a flight from Los Angeles, having just been released from prison, and neither one of us know that we're the twin brother of the other one and we're both on our way back to LA to avenge the death of our brothers."

Sound a little crazy? Of course it does, but then again I would expect absolutely nothing less from Quentin Tarantino. Check out the video below and then let us know if you're on board for a Vega Brothers movie no matter what hoops Tarantino jumps through to make it work.

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

Could Lindsay Lohan benefit from a Tarantino career resurrection?If there's one thing that Quentin Tarantino can do better than anyone else, it's resuscitate flatlining actors. But even he may have his work cut out with Lindsay LohanSource: The Guardian UK

A few years ago, it was fun to peg Lindsay Lohan as the girl from the film about the magical winking car. The assumption was that an actress as hotly tipped as her would go on to win massive acclaim and awards, and reminding her of her days as the star of Herbie: Fully Loaded would be a terrific wheeze.

Things haven't exactly panned out that way, though. Professionally, Lindsay Lohan has lurched from bad to worse, picking up a stroppy letter from a producer here, playing a pair of amnesiac stripper twins there. The few films she's hired for go straight to DVD, and her work is overshadowed by the slow-motion demolition job that is her personal life. The end result is that Herbie: Fully Loaded now possibly represents her best work. That's no fun.

But she could soon emerge from the wilderness. If reports are to be believed, Lohan made such an impression on the set of Machete – the film based on the fake trailer from the start of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's misstep Grindhouse – that Tarantino is currently cooking up a "shocking, hardcore" part for her in a forthcoming project that will instantly propel her back into the big league.

Because that's something that Quentin Tarantino is quite good at. Everybody knows what Pulp Fiction did for John Travolta, dragging him away from Kirstie Alley and the talking babies, and making him a genuine box-office proposition again. Similarly, Jackie Brown brought Pam Grier back into the spotlight, and Kill Bill made David Carradine and, to a lesser extent, Uma Thurman register on the Hollywood radar. If there's one thing that Quentin Tarantino can do better than anyone else, it's resuscitate flatlining actors.

Obviously once they've been resuscitated, they're on their own again, at which point their careers usually flounder. After receiving Tarantino's helping hand, Pam Grier made The Adventures of Pluto Nash; Uma Thurman made the now infamous Motherhood; David Carradine played a horny old triad called Poon Dong in Crank 2, then died; and John Travolta voluntarily chose to star in (deep breath) Battlefield Earth, Ladder 49, Be Cool, Wild Hogs, Hairspray and Old Dogs all in the space of a single decade. And these actors are much more celebrated than Lindsay Lohan – so even if Tarantino does decide to give her a boost, she probably shouldn't start clearing any Oscar spaces on her mantelpiece yet.

Pessimism aside, we should celebrate Tarantino's gift for bringing forgotten actors back into the fold. There's a whole world of once-ubiquitous talents who've long since fallen by the wayside out there, and they're all waiting for his call. So who should be next on Tarantino's resurrection list?

Kevin Costner, maybe? Although he's worked solidly across the last few years, the heights of his early-90s heyday have long eluded him. Could a role in a Tarantino film send him back into the A-list? Doubtful – not even Tarantino would want to reignite the egotism that caused Costner to play a piss-drinking aqua-Jesus in Waterworld and then end The Postman with a shot of grateful villagers worshipping at the foot of a statue of himself.

So who else? Chris O'Donnell and Cuba Gooding Jr have never fulfilled their early promise, but they never had the iconic status that Tarantino looks for when he's casting a comeback. Geena Davis would be a good candidate, because she's at least the equal of Kill Bill's Daryl Hannah. A Jon Voight or a Ryan O'Neal may be able to put their increasingly barmy tabloid headlines behind them with a meaty QT part. Or what about Michael Winslow from the Police Academy films? Surely if Tarantino's films could benefit from anything, it's a bug-eyed character who runs around making helicopter noises with his mouth. What? It'd be no sillier than giving Lindsay Lohan another chance. If you can think of anyone better, leave your ideas in the comment section.

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

pretends or genuinely believes mean girls didn't exist, pretends or genuinely believes most of the movies travolta made in the 2000s have somehow been a BAD choice for the guy (but wild hogs was one of the highest grossing films of the year), fails to mention Robert Forster along with Pam Grier, talks about Uma Thurman like she wasn't actually a star since Pulp Fiction, seems to assign Carradine's death as a poor career choice (?!).. and endless more.

that speculation at the end is the most embarrassing part. does he honestly think Chris O Donnell or Cuba Gooding Jr are good actors? tarantino might not always work with the BEST actors but those idiots, especially the latter, hav shown themselves to be as good as their movies.. they've actually gone on to make the films that adequately represent their ability. in fact the whole last paragraph should not even be read by anyone.

pretends or genuinely believes mean girls didn't exist, pretends or genuinely believes most of the movies travolta made in the 2000s have somehow been a BAD choice for the guy (but wild hogs was one of the highest grossing films of the year), fails to mention Robert Forster along with Pam Grier, talks about Uma Thurman like she wasn't actually a star since Pulp Fiction, seems to assign Carradine's death as a poor career choice (?!).. and endless more.

that speculation at the end is the most embarrassing part. does he honestly think Chris O Donnell or Cuba Gooding Jr are good actors? tarantino might not always work with the BEST actors but those idiots, especially the latter, hav shown themselves to be as good as their movies.. they've actually gone on to make the films that adequately represent their ability. in fact the whole last paragraph should not even be read by anyone.

worthless.

agreed.

plus as far as i know, the problem with lindsay lohan is not just that she is a bad actress but also a fucking unreliable trainwreck.

she pissed off everyone at the set of machete to the point where she is almost not in the movie. she did not show up on the dates she was supposed to show, etc. tarantino has worked with some weird people but he is a professional and he is very dedicated and smart. she would have to act very differently for a chance of working with him.

Who Knows What Evil Lurks In The Hearts Of Men: Quentin Tarantino Circling New Version Of 'The Shadow'?

Since the release this time last year of "Inglourious Basterds," Quentin Tarantino has been uncharacteristically quiet; it's not uncommon for him to go years between projects, but normally he spends the intervening time talking incessantly about ideas that we'll never see. There's been discussion of a spaghetti western focusing on slavery, as well as an adaptation of a trilogy of Len Deighton spy novels, and a 1930s gangster movie, and possibly a documentary on patron/friend Harvey Weinstein.

But our good pals at Pajiba have thrown a curveball into the mix, as they're reporting that the motor-mouthed auteur is interested in teaming up with 20th Century Fox to write and direct the new version of pulp hero "The Shadow" that they picked up earlier in the year. The property, which last reached the screen in 1994 with Alec Baldwin in the lead, was being developed by Sam Raimi, a long time fan of the character, who first set it up at Columbia almost four years ago, and rumors earlier in the year suggested, after Fox picked it up in turnaround, that "Twilight: Eclipse" director David Slade would direct, rumors that the helmer vociferously denied over the weekend.

Pajiba say that Tarantino is in discussions with Fox, and may even already be on board, about directing the project, and rewriting the script, by Siavash Farahani. As surprising as this seems, in some ways it's the kind of pulpy project that we can imagine the director getting excited about, and Pajiba, as they point out, have a solid track record with the news from their same source.

At the same time, it does seem remarkably out of character -- after all, Tarantino's never taken on a property that wasn't originated by him, let alone a semi-forgotten, fairly lame pulp hero, with the power to "cloud men's minds," no less, which we imagine makes all the other superheroes make fun of him when his back's turned. As Pajiba themselves say, "maybe he's just added this to the huge pile of future possibilities and has no intention of ever directing," and that seems like the most likely option; Fox have tried their luck, the director's interest has been piqued, but that they're still a way off from any kind of deal, and indeed, that deal may never materialize. But having said that, stranger things have happened...

If you’re a fan of director Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist history films Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, you’ll be happy to hear there might be a third film in the series on the horizon. Tentatively titled Killer Crow, the film was inspired by the creative process of making Inglourious Basterds and would take place in a similar timeline: in 1944 after the Invasion of Normandy. It would center on a group of black soldiers who go AWOL. Though it’s only about half-written, Tarantino seems to have a pretty good foundation already.

Here’s what Tarantino revealed about Killer Crow in a recent interview with The Root (via Empire):

“…My original idea for Inglourious Basterds way back when was that this [would be] a huge story that included the [smaller] story that you saw in the film, but also followed a bunch of black troops, and they had been f–ked over by the American military and kind of go apes–t. They basically — the way Lt. Aldo Raines (Brad Pitt) and the Basterds are having an “Apache resistance” — [the] black troops go on an Apache warpath and kill a bunch of white soldiers and white officers on a military base and are just making a warpath to Switzerland.

So that was always going to be part of it. And I was going to do it as a miniseries, and that was going to be one of the big storylines. When I decided to try to turn it into a movie, that was a section I had to take out to help tame my material. I have most of that written. It’s ready to go; I just have to write the second half of it…That would be the third of the trilogy. It would be [connected to] Inglourious Basterds, too, because Inglourious Basterds are in it, but it is about the soldiers. It would be called Killer Crow or something like that.”

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“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

Quentin Tarantino is a busy man. Talk of his grim, dirty western, The Hateful Eight, has heated up again, and at San Diego Comic-Con he revealed plans for a crossover Django Unchained/Zorro comic, which could be fun. And while he has an affinity for kung-fu flicks, pop culture, and B-movies of all varieties, he’s never expressed much of an interest science fiction. Sure, he’s mentions genre films in his movies now and again, but he’s never talked much about making one of his own, at least until now.

During the Dynamite Comics panel that went down over the weekend at Comic-Con a fan asked the Pulp Fiction director about the possibility of making the jump from gritty westerns and crime pictures to something a little more otherworldly. Here is his response:

If you had asked me a few years ago I would have said, ‘Nah, not really, I don’t know.’ But I have a little idea right now. It’s a little flower, you know, like a bean sprout, but those tend to grow into stalks. So this is the first time I’ll be able to say ‘maybe.’ It won’t be a spaceship sci-fi, it’ll be earthbound… A series that I would like to put a spin on is the Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. I want to take it from the pod people’s perspective, so you’re actually rooting for the pod people. I don’t think they’re so bad.

This isn’t an imminent thing, so don’t expect to see a Quentin Tarantino-directed sci-fi film in your local theater anytime in the next few years, if this ever actually materializes. Still, the idea is definitely an intriguing one. Like he says, this is the first time the subject has ever really come up, and he’s obviously been giving it at least some thought.

And of course, Tarantino would want to make a pod-people movie from their point of view. This is, after all, a man who has made fans empathize with criminals, murderers, outlaws, and miscreants of all varieties over the years. Hell, when John Travolta blows off Marvin’s head in Samuel L. Jackson’s car in Pulp Fiction, you, like the character, are more concerned that they may get pulled over than with the fact he killed a guy in the back seat.

If nothing else, this would give Tarantino an opportunity to reference all kinds of obscure sci-fi films that can only be found on grainy, bootleg VHS tapes, or something like that. We’re talking visually, with character names, and in dialogue, he could go crazy and take his films in a direction he’s never gone before. Can’t you just picture the sharp, fast-paced conversations full of allusions and oblique mentions of random science fiction movies? That sounds like it could be a fun time to us. This was even on our Christmas wish-list last year.

Are you interested in seeing Tarantino maybe, possibly, some day far down the road, make a sci-fi film?